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Atticus Finch the Ambiguities of Racism

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Atticus Finch the Ambiguities of Racism Atticus Finch The Ambiguities of Racism Introduction When Atticus Finch walked out of the courtroom following the trial of Tom Robinson, and all the people in the black section of the courtroom rose to their feet, and Rev. Sykes whispered to Scout Finch, “…stand up. Your father’s passin,” I cried, with pride, that a white man would be honored in such a way.1 Atticus Finch was a boyhood hero of mine. Apparently I am not the only one who holds Atticus Finch in high esteem. Those whose chosen profession is the law still admire him. “Atticus Finch is invoked as a guiding influence more frequently in essays for law school admission than any other factor by far.”2 In fact, Americans in general have long worshipped him, or at least the film ideal of him, as one of their greatest heroes. In 1963 Gregory Peck won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Atticus, and in 2003 the American Film Institute listed Atticus Finch as the number one hero of American films in the last 100 years. 3 Given his national status, it is no wonder that when Go Set A Watchman, Harper Lee’s second novel, portrayed Atticus Finch as a racist, many faithful readers were incensed. By sheer happenstance, last winter, I decided to revisit the halls of ideal worship by reading again, To Kill a Mockingbird. Not long after I completed it, the first announcements that Harper Lee had agreed to the publication of the pre-sequel, Go Set a Watchman, began to hit the wires. The media coverage was unbearable. So, I acquired a copy to see for myself what had happened to my hero in his later years. The two stories, taken together as a whole, are a compelling assessment of the ambiguities of racism. It is not always clear who harbors bias against another race, and how and why. The ambiguities to which the subtitle of this paper refers are not the harsh horrors abhorrent to most, but the more subtle inequalities that are equally harmful to all involved. With that in mind, and also with the knowledge that Atticus was, and is a hero to many, that the frenzy surrounding this new publication might have pierced the consciousness of you and/or your members, and further, that racism is, once again, a hot topic in our country, I determined to veer into the literary genre for this paper, in the sincere hope that some of you may stay awake long enough to gain something from it. I. Storyline Review History of the development of the story lines I suspect that many of you were required to read To Kill a Mockingbird somewhere during your high school career; a development that may or may not have proved enlightening, depending on the volume of hormones coursing through your veins during that particular period of your life. Assuming that some you have not read the stories, or due to the 1 Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. Grand Central Publishing. New York. 1960 p. 283 2 Rosenbaum, Thane. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2015/02/ atticus_finch_hero_worship_law_students_love_to_kill_a_mockingbird_anticipate.html 3 http://www.afi.com/100Years/handv.aspx 1 unkindnesses of time are struggling to recall what they are all about, allow me to summarize briefly. In 1957, Harper Lee, an aspiring writer from Alabama, submitted the manuscript of her first novel to the publisher J. P. Lippincott. Her editor, Tay Hohoff, presumably appreciated the story, (which we now know as Go Set a Watchman), and the budding talent, but asked Ms. Lee to rewrite the story, focusing on Jean Louis Finch as a young girl. Two years later Ms. Lee returned with To Kill a Mockingbird. That novel went on to win a Pulitzer Prize in 1961. It was not until 2015 that Harper Lee agreed, (some say under coercion), to allow the publication of the unedited version of the first, but later in time, novel. The sequence of the writing of these works is significant when attempting to analyze their meaning. To Kill a Mockingbird (A Review) Jean Louise Finch narrates her own story of growing up in Maycomb County, Alabama in the late 1930s. Scout, as she is then known, is somewhere around 6 years old. She and her older brother, Jem, are being raised by their lawyer, father, Atticus, and, since his wife had died years earlier, a black nanny, by the name of Calpurnia. The story meanders through the daily lives and characters of small town Alabama. Scout, a precocious child, learns many lessons, primarily focusing on those who were underprivileged in some way: Dill- a boy who spent the summer with his aunt because his parents did not want him, the Cunninghams- a classmate and his family, who were poverty stricken, Boo Radley- a neighbor who was mentally ill, and Tom Robinson- a black man, unjustly accused of raping a white woman. In each case it is Atticus, with modest, muted wisdom who teaches the lesson; enduring Dill and his aunt, protecting the Cunningham’s pride, sheltering Boo Radley, and at the expense of being called a “nigger lover,” defending Tom Robinson in court. Through humor, insight, and high drama we watch as Scout comes to admire and idolize her father. America followed suit. Always in search of heroes, and still in the mood to paint such heroes with broad strokes, we glommed onto a larger than life image of Atticus, (especially in the film), devoid of any subtleties that sin spawns even in fictional characters. That is why the revelations of the elder Atticus were so jarring to so many fans. Go Set a Watchman (A Review) Now twenty-six, Jean Louise Finch is on her way from New York to Maycomb to visit her elderly father. It is generally expected that she will marry her childhood friend, Henry Clinton, who is now working with Atticus in his law office. This relationship carries the first half of the story, until the bombshell explodes when Jean Louise follows Atticus and Henry to a town meeting where vile racist taunts are spewed and plans are laid to keep blacks in their place. It is obvious to Jean Louise that her father approves all this. She is sick with confusion and anger. When she confronts him, he does not deny it. In fact he seeks to convince her of the reasonableness of his position. She angrily rejects him and everything he stands for. Later, with the help of her uncle Jack, Atticus’ brother, Jean Louise surrenders to an uneasy peace with her father. He tells her that he is proud of her for standing up to him and holding her ground. She tells him that she loves him. She reaches the conclusion that it takes all kinds of people to populate a world. She cannot beat her father and she cannot join her father because “…they’re (the racists) the drag and we’re the thrust, together we make the thing fly. 4 4 Lee, Harper. Go Set a Watchman. Harper Collins, New York. 2015. p. 277 2 II. Theories on the Racism of Atticus Finch and our own. A. Atticus Finch should never have been seen as a hero. A theory that was unable to gain traction was that Atticus Finch was not the paragon of virtue that Americans had made of him. “In fact, there is a well-established body of scholarship on To Kill A Mockingbird that draws attention to flaws in Atticus’s character.”5 Chief among these flaws is that he did not defend Tom Robinson as a person but as a point of law. Atticus did not really get to know Tom or care for him. This view holds that creating a hero out of Atticus Finch salved the collective conscience of white America. “Atticus Finch has, for more than 50 years, allowed white America to sleep at night. He embodied the heroism that white America believed would keep our criminal justice system clean of racial horrors. White America still believes that a few legal heroes will solve all the problems—will keep the racist wolves at bay. Atticus Finch enabled a lie.”6 In actuality then, Atticus allowed whites to trust his efforts so that they could maintain their personal bias. Katie Pryal writes, “I noted Atticus Finch’s “failure of empathy,” and said that white readers could not—would not—empathize with black characters in the book because of a “fear of revelation.” In other words, I was arguing, white people really don’t want to know what it’s like to walk around in the skin of a black person, despite what Atticus claimed in the book.” 7 B. Atticus Finch should be seen as a hero that lost his ideal. A second theory is that Atticus’ age and the political developments of the day changed him. Specifically, Atticus became a racist in his old age due to the Brown vs Board of Education decision, which upset his perfect little world. “Atticus and Scout discuss an important Supreme Court case that has altered (Atticus would say gravely damaged) race relations throughout the South. This case would almost certainly have to be Brown vs. Board of Education…” 8 This view is a caveat against the loss of ideals as a result of the weariness induced through the constant barrage of the realists, and the weakness of age. C. The heroism of Atticus Finch depends on who is looking. This is my personal analysis and one of the lessons I think the books can teach us.
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